Heroes Not Zombies

Here’s how our brain works…..all the signals from our environment, and from within our own body, flow up from our sensory organs, through a vast network of nerve fibres to the right cerebral hemisphere which then hands off the information to the left hemisphere. The job of the left is to abstract, to focus on parts, to label and categorise. In short, to re-cognise, in order to help us grasp, both physically and mentally, the world, so we can manipulate it. The left hemisphere, having done its job hands back its work to the right which contextualises it all….puts it all back into the vast web of connections which the left extracted it from….so we can see the whole, so we can see the connections and relationships.

The left hemisphere fundamentally creates a re-presentation of reality. It’s a map, a model, an abstracted layer. It’s not actual reality. The right deals with reality as a whole.

OK, that’s all a vast over-simplification of the process, but it gives you a basic understanding of why we need both halves of the brain – it’s not a matter of one side good, the other bad. They do different jobs and we need them to work together.

But there’s just one more nuance to lay out here – they are not equal. The right hemisphere should be in charge. Iain McGilchrist’s thesis in the Master and His Emissary, is that we have developed cultures and ways of thinking where we give greatest credence to the left hemisphere….even to the extent of dismissing what the right can tell us. This separates us. It’s separates us from each other and from the rest of the world. It’s not real.

Whether I consider the physical changes I make by living on this planet…the oxygen I breathe in, the water and nutrients I ingest and digest, the molecules I excrete, the radiation of heat from my body…..or whether I consider the impact of my words, my creations and expressions….the intense interconnectedness of being a live human being means that every day I change the world a little, just as the world changes me.

So, I’m reminded of a much taught piece of advice – if I have a choice I should choose kindness. Whatever I pay attention to, I should pay a loving attention to. Whenever I can, I should care.

We make this world a better world by building and nurturing integrative relationships – mutually beneficial bonds between well differentiated parts.

One knows nothing save what one loves, and the deeper and more complete that knowledge, the stronger and livelier must be one’s love – indeed passion

Goethe

Love is fabled to be blind, but to me it seems that kindness is necessary to perception

Emerson

Both Goethe and Emerson agree…..we can’t know, maybe even can’t even perceive, unless we direct our attention in a loving, or kind manner. I found that was a foundational principle to medical practice. Unless you genuinely cared for the patient you never got to know them, never really understood them. I’m sure that’s why many patients would say after a good consultation that they had felt, not just heard, but seen, or even “felt” for the first time.

I do believe you can teach that to doctors, but I think it should be taught explicitly. We should be taught not just the importance of the “necessary distance” to see the whole picture and to be objective, but the importance of genuinely caring and engaging with the patient in a kind, even loving manner.

It’s the same in an ordinary day. When we pay loving attention to whatever we encounter, be that a flower, a bird, a person, a work of art, then we really perceive. When we drift carelessly through a day, we don’t perceive reality at all.

Love and kindness are important principles if we want to live a full, expansive, and satisfying life. It matters not just what we pay attention to but the manner in which we attend to it.

One thing which catches my eye time and time again is a flower, a leaf, or a tree, lit by sunlight. I love to get down and frame a photo which captures the impression of a natural glow. In a picture like this you have the idea that the light is emerging from within the plant. Even though the light is actually shining through, not from, the plant, I think a scene like this always puts me in touch with the sense that there is a life force, a vital force, which enlivens all that is alive….call it a spirit, call it a soul, call it a consciousness, call it the vibrant, glowing energy of LIFE.

The light which shines THROUGH leads us to what is vital, what is alive.

“The trees made the past seem within reach in a way nothing else could: here were living things that had been planted and tended by a living being who was gone, but the trees that had been alive in her lifetime were in ours and might be after we were gone. They changed the shape of time.”
Rebecca Solnit. Orwell’s Roses

What a great phrase….”they changed the shape of time”.

We tend to think of ourselves as being at some peak of evolution, but when it comes to longevity, we humans are surpassed by many other life forms…not least trees, some of which can live thousands of years, and many of which can live for several hundred. If we stop to think what was going on in the world over the many years since a tree was planted, or since its seed first sprouted, we get a totally different perspective on life. It’s a bit like the temporal equivalent of the “view from on high” – we stand back and see a much greater whole – and in so doing we situate ourselves differently. We experience the “change in the shape of time”

There’s an Etruscan word, saeculum, that describes the span of time lived by the oldest person present, sometimes calculated to be about a hundred years. In a looser sense, the word means the expanse of time during which something is in living memory. Every event has its saeculum, and then its sunset when the last person who fought in the Spanish Civil War or the last person who saw the last passenger pigeon is gone.

Orwell’s Roses. Rebecca Solnit

From time to time I muse about what it is to be a person, and whether or not that uniqueness of an individual is bound to the presence of their physical body. It seems clear to me that it’s not. Great artists continue to have an impact on others and on the world through their art, long after they are gone. Great musicians and composers too. Great writers, thinkers, inventors, also. But even within a family, a loved one has never completely gone…..maybe not ever, but at least not until there are no more stories told about them, no more memories lodged in the minds of the living, no more of their creative works still in existence, whether that be a poem, a song, a garden, or a something made by their own hands.

I’m sure that what it is to be a person, a unique, individual, is not bound to the presence of a physical body, nor is it limited to the short span of life that any of us are likely to experience.

I read this recently –

Residents of Jersey have been recommended bloodletting to reduce high concentrations of “forever chemicals” in their blood after tests showed some islanders have levels that can lead to health problems.

I thought, “What? Bloodletting? Good job we didn’t get rid of all the leeches!” Then I read a bit more and discovered the leeches involved in this story aren’t the kind that suck your blood.

Private drinking water supplies in Jersey were polluted by the use of firefighting foams containing PFAS at the island’s airport, which were manufactured by the US multinational 3M.

So, the proposed solution from the Jersey government was to offer repeated blood letting to reduce the levels in residents’ bodies. It’s going to cost several thousand pounds a year to do this. Will the company responsible for the pollution pay? Well, it turns out that back in 2005, 3M secured an agreement with the States Assembly (after a behind-closed-doors debate), resulting in 3M giving the government of the day £2.6m, which went towards cleaning up the contaminated training ground and building a new rig on the site. In exchange for the money, the government agreed to “forever release, acquit, discharge, and covenant not to sue 3M or any 3M entity in relation to any and all Airport claims.”

What?

The details of the agreement are pretty shocking, the government agreed to –

“not take any action or other steps […] to procure, permit, promote, suggest, support or induce any company or other persons to make any claim or bring any proceedings against 3M or any 3M entities in relation to the supply to Jersey Airport and/or Jersey Airport’s Fire Service of any Firefighting Foam, the environmental, health, or safety effects of any Firefighting Foam or any substances in Firefighting Foam, or the presence or possible presence of any Firefighting Foam or any substances in Firefighting Foam in surface water, groundwater, or public water supply at or in the vicinity of Jersey Airport or Jersey Airport Fireground. They and all or any of their Government Committees shall use their reasonable best endeavours to provide information to 3M or any 3M Entity that might assist them in defending claims made or proceedings brought by any third party or parties in Jersey relating to the supply to Jersey Airport and/or Jersey Airport’s Fire Service of any Firefighting, the environmental, health, or safety effects of any Firefighting Foam in surface water, groundwater, or public water supply at or in the vicinity of Jersey Airport or Jersey Airport Fireground save that upon providing Information to 3M or any 3M Entity the States of Jersey and all or any of their Government Committees can at their entire discretion provide the same information to the other party or parties to the claim or proceeding. For the avoidance of doubt, this obligation to use reasonable best endeavours to provide information also means ensuring that the personnel and agents of the States of Jersey and their Government Committees with information in their possession make themselves available to 3M or 3M Entity, save that in the case of individuals in their possession who are not employees of the States of Jersey, the States of Jersey may discharge this obligation by using their reasonable best endeavours to encourage such individuals to make themselves available.”

This seems an example of how wealthy individuals and corporations can use their wealth as power – to secure protection against criminal or civic suits, and to never have to pay for the pollution and/or harms they cause.

Hardly a day goes by without my seeing some story or other which involves a “Non disclosure agreement”, or some other such procedure which involves money paid to avoid Public scrutiny and responsibility, and, in many cases, to avoid being held to account for harmful or careless behaviour. Corporations and wealthy individuals are able to buy themselves a variety of “justice” which is never available to ordinary citizens.

It’s time to reform corporate, and contract, law to stop these individuals from escaping their responsibilities, and to hold them to account in the exact same way that a non-wealthy citizen would be held to account. How is it just or fair to allow the rich, whether individuals, companies or institutions, to buy themselves a different variety of justice?

I got a Christmas present of a bird feeder with integrated solar powered camera. It was a bit fiddly to get going, but I persevered and am glad I did. It connects to an app on your phone where you can either watch live what the camera can see, or you can scroll back through the events where motion triggered a short video and capture some stills from there.

So far the blue tits and robins are the commonest visitors, and I’ve been able too see many short clips of them.

I really enjoy my encounters with the birds in my garden. Yesterday I mentioned how another app I have on my phone recognises birdsongs and told me that there were seven different species all singing at the same time.

So, these are two technologies I never knew existed, and probably, actually didn’t exist until pretty recently, which are enhancing my daily life.

How about you? Have you been discovering any technologies which make an every day a better day?